MixedNPR\"Babst takes on the Herculean feat of describing the interior lives of her characters against a jumbled panorama of destruction so vast that no single photograph could ever encompass it ... The travails of Cora and Adelaide include more than one pressing mystery to be solved, and Babst is adept at building suspense. But at times she muffles the action with an accumulation of detail that appears forced...Add to that a dizzying array of flashbacks and dream sequences, and momentum flags. What\'s more, Babst brings the reader so close to her characters that intimacy periodically comes at the expense of basic logistics ... The Floating World shines spectacularly, however, when Joe\'s father Vincent Boisdoré comes into view.\
